As minister of road transport and highways, and shipping, Nitin Gadkari runs a highly visible and critical ministry in the Narendra Modi government, but has — surprisingly — shown an averseness to the spotlight. He does talk occasionally to the press, as he did earlier this week about the prime minister asking him to prepare a policy to promote clean fuel. There is also the customary speech at government functions. Not to forget the odd...

KOLKATA: City-based United Bank of India (UBI), one of the lenders consortium to the fund-starved Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL), would not extend any further financial assistance to the company. "HPL needs funds to sustain operations which have started lately after a period of prolonged closure. But we are not going to extend further assistance to the company," an UBI official told PTI. The official said UBI had given HPL Rs 275 crore as...

KOLKATA: The Central Pollution Control Board has engaged an independent agency to conduct an environmental survey on Haldia and other areas where a blanket ban has been imposed on setting up new industrial units. "CPCB is conducting a survey through an independent agency to find out the pollution levels at Haldia and other areas," director with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) P B Rastogi said. He said the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) was...

Kolkatta: Nuggets of information are starting to trickle in on Reliance Industry's Haldia-related proposals discussed at chairman Mukesh Ambani's near two-hour meeting with West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on June 21. RIL will undertake an independent feasibility study for setting up a deep sea port near Haldia. A high-level RIL team will arrive in Haldia to do a spot assessment and zero in on the precise location. The feasibility report may be submitted in the next 45-60 days, sources...

As minister of road transport and highways, and shipping, Nitin Gadkari runs a highly visible and critical ministry in the Narendra Modi government, but has — surprisingly — shown an averseness to the spotlight. He does talk occasionally to the press, as he did earlier this week about the prime minister asking him to prepare a policy to promote clean fuel. There is also the customary speech at government functions. Not to forget the odd...

KOLKATA: Ailing Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL), which has commenced pre-startup activity after a seven-month closure, would not operate at sub-optimal levels of capacity utilisation in future, a source in TCG said. "We do not want to run the mother plant at sub-optimal levels of capacity and lose money every day. The plant will operate at optimal levels of capacity", the source said. Initially, the plant management had...

KOLKATA: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is set to invest close to Rs 5,000 crore over the next three to four years to expand capacity of its refinery at Haldia. "IOC will invest Rs 5,000 crore to increase the capacity of Haldia refinery from the present 5 million tonne to 7.5 million tonne," IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria said on Thursday. "Apart from the expansion, a new plant for making paraxylene, is also being planned," Mr Behuria told reporters on the sidelines of National HRD summit.

faced with the twin problems of over-supply and high interest costs, the crisis-ridden haldia petrochemicals has taken a conscious decision to regulate production to control inventories. an hpl spokesman said that the judging by the current scenario, the market for polymers was facing a glut both on the domestic and overseas fronts. this fact had prompted the hpl management to regulate production till the market picks up, which is expected after january 2002, the spokesman said. dipping...

KOLKATA: The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) are planning to initiate a pilot project to demonstrate smart city concept at the industrial township of Haldia in West Bengal. The project holds significance as industries in Haldia will be able to expand without environment related hurdles which it currently faces. "We are planning to implement a pilot project to showcase smart city concepts in...

Kolkata: Tata Power will set up a 30-mw gas-based power plant in Haldia to meet the requirements of Hooghly Met Coke & Power (HMCPC) plants. Work on the project will start in two months. This is part of Tata Power's plans to set up 120 mw gas-based generation units with an investment of Rs500 crore in Haldia. Incidentally, Tata Power announced that unit 1 of its 2x45 mw Haldia power project was synchronized with the grid on April 2. The unit is scheduled to...

NEW DELHI: Aegis Group today said it has commissioned the first phase of its new bulk liquid terminal in Haldia having storage capacity of 15,100 kl (kilolitre). The total capacity expansion (a greenfield project) at Haldia involves setting up of a bulk liquid terminal with 19 tanks totalling storage capacity of 60,190 kl, the company said. "Now with Phase I commissioning, five tanks will be operational and will have a storage capacity of 15,100 kl," the company...

KOLKATA: Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is set to earn a royalty of Rs 14.77 per tonne of cargo handled at Haldia Dock , after the Centre asked the port to appoint cargo handlers through a bidding process. "The bids have been opened and we hope in the next three months the new royalty based cargo-handling system will be implemented," KoPT sources told PTI. "The highest royalty had been quoted at Rs 14.77 per tonne by Ripley & Co against floor rate of Rs 13....

KOLKATA: After a prolonged closure, the Haldia Petrochemicals Limited (HPL) plant is in the process of re-starting operations with trial run to begin in the near future. "The captive power plant has been commissioned as a pre-start up activity. The main plant start-up should happen anytime now", a source in HPL told PTI. He said stabilisation of the power plant would take some days, after which steps would be initiated for operating the mother plant, closed...

KOLKATA: Indian Oil Corporation today said the impact of closure of Haldia Petrochemicals on its refinery was minimal as the facility had switched to other product mix. "We have switched to other product mix at Haldia refinery in the wake of closure of HPL and so the impact is not much," Indian Oil Corp (IOC) Executive Director (Bengal) Y K Gupta said. He was speaking to media on the sidelines of Oil & Gas Conservation fortnight. He said...

KOLKATA: Private power utility CESC's unit-I of Haldia power plant started full load generation from this morning. A company spokesperson said that the first unit reached full load generation capacity of 300 MW. CESC chairman Sanjiv Goenka had said the second unit of 300 MW will also come on stream by March. The power plant is 600 MW capacity thermal power plant which has coal linkage with Coal India. When both units of the Haldia plant become operational, the total...

KOLKATA: The RP-Sanjiv Goenka group company CESC Ltd today expressed hope that clarifications on coal mine auctions will be available in the next few weeks. "Clarity will be available in few weeks," chairman Sanjiv Goenka said here today when asked about the forthcoming coal mine auctions in which CESC was set to participate. He, however, declined to speak further on the company's strategy and on the issues faced by the industry before going ahead with mine...

NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. will consider setting up a submarine cable landing station at Haldia (West Bengal) at the time of commencing its International Long Distance services, the government said on Wednesday. Such a proposal has been received and examined by BSNL, Minister of State for Comunications Shakeel Ahmad said in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha. To another query, he said the government was examining the Telecom Regulatory Authority of...

KOLKATA: With Haldia Petrochemicals Limited's (HPL) plant closed since July, salary payments in the month of January for employees have come under a cloud. "There is some problem in payments of salaries of the HPL employees in January," a source in the company said. Today, the management committee of the HPL held a meeting, which was also attended by TCG chief Purnendu Chatterjee , to resolve the pending crisis which was on the top of the agenda. The representative...

KOLKATA: The ailing Haldia Petrochemicals Limited , whose plant is under closure since last six months, failed to meet export commitment for which it had got advance licenses. "Since 2009, HPL was getting advance license for duty-free import of naphtha against exports of finished products," a source close to the development told. However, owing to poor pricing, the company could not send its finished products overseas,...